Living in the now

Combine chemistry with Magic: The Gathering, and you get Elementeo, a collectible card game that aims to teach chemistry to students in a fun, unusual way. Anshul Samar, the 14-year-old CEO of Alchemist Empire, Inc., was scheduled to speak yesterday at the 235th American Chemical Society National Meeting in New Orleans. He hopes to secure $500,000 in funding so his Silicon Valley-based startup can begin mass producing the game.

You are not a geek or a nerd if you like chemistry,” says Samar. “If people do end up calling you a geek because you love chemistry, don’t worry, those people are going to end up working for you at the end!”

I’ve seen Iron Chef and Iron Chef America a handful of times, but they are not “Must See TV” for me. Both shows are exciting and enjoyable to watch, and I think they’re partly responsible for the appeal of the Nintendo DS and Wii Cooking Mama video game series. Following the success of those games, Destineer and United Media announced last week that they will be bringing the Iron Chef franchise to both systems. Allez Cuisine!

Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd are getting back together and revisiting their roles to make a sequel to Ghostbusters 1 and 2 – in video-game form, and we’ve got the first details. Both Aykroyd and Ramis are teaming up for scriptwriting duties and are going far beyond just the typical licensed add-your-voice-to-the-game-you-had-nothing-to-do-with formula.

How sweet is that? As regular readers to this blog know, Ghostbusters was Number 5 on my list of Movies for a deserted island. Also, I was big fan of the Activision Ghostbusters game for the Commodore 64. In that game, you could buy a 1963 hearse for how much? You guessed right, $4800! Although that was the coolest looking vehicle, the $6000 station wagon was the best value because you could stuff a lot more ghost traps (and hence ghosts) into the back of it before returning to your HQ to unload. “The light is green, the trap is clean.”

I hope that the new version will be available for the Nintendo Wii as what would be better than a Wii-mote positron glider?!? That’s just another reason to hope Santa brings a new console to our house this Christmas.

Update: Here’s the official site for the upcoming Ghostbusters game. Tagline – Next Fall, Who You Gonna Call? And, yes…you will be able to bust heads in a spiritual sense on the Wii.

On December 25, 1980, Santa delivered a brand new Atari 2600 under our Christmas tree.Actually, I believe the elves at the Kmart that my Dad managed bought it for him, but that didn’t matter at the time.I then spent the next few years honing my hand-eye coordination.

One of my favorite games on the console was Adventure, which was probably the first title in the RPG genre.The goal was simple.You (represented by a square) needed to find the enchanted chalice and return it to the gold castle.Three poultry-like dragons and a frantic item-grabbing bat tried to thwart your quest.Armed with your trusty sword (a yellow arrow), you could slay the dragons or end up being eaten alive in their see-through stomachs.For an added challenge, I would attempt to place all of the game items in the gold castle prior to returning chalice.The results were even more distorted noise and flashing than in the regular ending.

Adventure was also the first game with an Easter egg in it.If you could find the “magic dot” in the black castle, then it could be used to see the message, “Created by Warren Robinett.”I am proud to say I discovered that pixel, but I don’t recall finding the hidden name.

If you’re jonesing for some old school gaming, then you can watch Adventure being played here or pick up the Atari 10-in-1 Games joystick for some dragon-duck hunting!